Happy Run-iversary to Me!

If I remember things correctly (which is highly doubtful), three years ago today I started running. I started running because I was home to help my dad recover from his knee replacement surgery, was out for a walk while waiting for him and Mum to arrive home from the hospital in OKC and found I needed to go faster when "Given to Fly" was playing on my trusty iPod.

Do I blame Pearl Jam? Do I blame my dad's bum knee? Do I blame my impatience?How about all three of 'em?

I had no idea then that I'd become addicted. I've had setbacks and injuries, and I've had my share of moments when the last thing I wanted to do was get on the damn treadmill and run. I've even allowed myself a few times of cutting my run short because I just didn't feel right or I just had too much going on in my head to "let loose" while running. Unlike a lot of events in my life, I don't let myself linger on those moments. I focus instead on doing what I need to do now so that I can keep running and celebrate more run-iversaries.

That said, I do wish my body and my mental disposition were in such shape that would allow me to celebrate my run-iversaries with some kind of running challenge. But once you've done a half-marathon, a full marathon really seems to be the next big challenge, and not too many marathons happen in Austin in November (the one in San Antonio is just too expensive). And since the 'ol body isn't quite what it used to be in terms of allowing me to run a long distance, I've had to switch to challenging myself with longer and longer bike rides, and that's fine with me.

So this weekend, the bike and I celebrated our respective milestones (the bike's 1-year anniversary and my 3-year run-iversary) by taking part in The Wurst Ride in Texas. We traveled together 64-point-some-odd miles from south Austin to New Braunfels, totaling a metric century. I started off a few minutes after 8 a.m. and proudly crossed the finish line at 12:05 p.u. Not too shabby considering I stopped at two of the five rest stops for roughly 5 minutes each stop.

The ride was a great one, all things considered. Sure, the start temperature of 41 degrees wasn't pleasant, but I had enough thermal gear on to largely protect me. Sure, the constantly running nose got to be a drag, but that's why a person wears sleeves, right? Yes, I ran into (almost literally) my fair share of cyclists whose concept of "Share the road" means riding on the left side of the lane and cyclists whose concept of "Ride single file" means to ride two or three abreast while gossiping. I could have done without the bicycle-built-for-two folks, the mountain bikers and the folks who obviously spent a few thousand dollars on their bikes and accessories but obviously didn't ride those bikes terribly often. And even though the wind had shifted from the north-northwest breeze that had been blowing for the previous 2 or 3 days to a Gulf breeze out of the south-southeast, it was not really a factor at all. All in all, November 6, 2010, was a frickin' perfect day to ride a bike.

After a shower, an attempt at a nap that lasted about 2 hours and a failed attempt to put my contacts back in my eyeballs, which were all bloodshot and irritated from the cold air, I suppose, the boys and I headed to Gyros+ to celebrate with a lamb gyro (stuffed to the gills with yummy lamb), a grilled chicken gyro (tasty), falafel (falafel rocks) and a plate of hummus and warm, lightly toasted pitas. These gyros were my first, as was the falafel, and I have to admit that I'm now addicted to falafel. Are chickpeas just the best thing in the world to eat or what, Gentle Reader?

Happy run-iversary to me!

Battle of the Bread Machines, Day 7

As promised, here's the husband with the latest installment of the Battle of the Bread Machines.

--The Faudie
Yes, I know we haven't played this game lately. But you don't think we'd be continuing our little bread machine contest unless we had a really good reason to, do you?

Well, we do.

Competitor #7: The Zojirushi Model BBCC-X20

The Faudie has already profiled today's contestant, the Zojirushi BBCC-X20. Go ahead and read her post about this double-paddled lil' wonder. All that I can to add to what she's written is: A $240 bread machine for $14? Daaaaaaaaaaaamn. Thank you, Goodwill! From out of nowhere, the Zo has become the machine to beat in this competition.

Anxious to get started with the Zo, I didn't spend a lot of time deciding what kind of bread to make. I just went with the first reasonable recipe I came across, which happened to be:

Homestyle Whole Wheat Bread

1 1/2 C water
3 C whole wheat bread flour
heaped 3/4 C white bread flour
1 1/2 t salt
2 t sugar
2 T butter, diced
1 t instant dry yeast

1. Add ingredients to machine according to manufacturer's directions.
   
2. Use Whole Wheat or Multigrain setting, if available.
   

Yield: 1 lb. loaf

Nutritional Info
This particular recipe came from Anne Sheasby's The Bread Machine Bible, which has the Donna Rathmell Germanesque quality of not including nutritional information.

The Husband's Futzings
None to report other than the addition of three teaspoons of vital gluten.

As The Faudie mentioned in her post, our Zo came complete with its original instruction manual (helpfully titled "How To Enjoy Your Home Bakery Supreme"), and thank goodness it did. The BBCC-X20 is capable of a lot, but it's almost impossible to use the controls using intuition alone. For example, to bypass the preheat process, you have to press the "TIME" and "CYCLE" buttons at the same time for three seconds. I can safely say I wouldn't have known that without having the manual on hand.

Official Results for Competitor #7
I'm guessing there's a reason Zojirushi bread machines sell for north of $200, and that reason is because they're awesome. Don't believe me? Just take a look at the loaf of homestyle whole wheat our Zo produced.

The Zo made it so.

The loaf came out perfectly cooked, the crust was the right darkness...I even love the shape of the loaf, which simply looks more "bread-like" than the carbohydrate cubes most of our other machines produce. I couldn't have asked for more. (Since then, I've also used the Zo to prepare a sourdough pizza crust, and the machine continued to perform like a champ.)

By now, we've tested a lot of different appliances over the course of the Battle of the Bread Machines, some of which have found a permanent home in our kitchen. But the Zo has jumped to the front of the pack. I'd hate to think this is the end of our competition, but I have a hard time believing we're going to find a bread machine better than the BBCC-X20.

And yes, it scores extra points for being a $240 machine picked up for just $14. (When was the last time you got a 94% discount on anything?)

It only cost us $7 a paddle!

A Tale of Two Starters

The problem with having two sourdough starters is that they take up a lot of space in the refrigerator...and, of course, you can't use a sourdough starter for much beyond making sourdough. Here's the husband with an update on how he's trying to put those starters to good use.

--The Faudie

I find it interesting how our two sourdough starters turned out. As I noted in my last sourdough post, the one made with molasses formed a dark brown hooch fairly quickly; in comparison, the one made with sugar has never developed anything more than a pale, almost clear liquid that may or may not be hooch. This observation led me to believe, based on my (admittedly limited) knowledge of such matters, that the molasses-based starter developed better than the sugar-based starter, but it's hard to tell. Both had a distinctively boozy aroma, which I gather is a good sign. And while the sugar-based starter didn't have the appearance I was expecting, it did have the appropriate texture when stirred, similar to the consistency of pancake batter. The molasses-based starter, in comparison, was more silt-like underneath the hooch, and the two portions didn't seem to mix well.

Fascinating, isn't it? I've decided that, when the time comes for the boy to begin participating in science fairs at school, I want him to research different ways to make sourdough starters. Which, no doubt, would result in the same problem my experimentation has gotten us into: too many starters taking up too much room in the fridge. Thus, I've moved on to stage two of my experiment, which involves finding new ways to use these starters.

Donna Rathmell German's always-reliable Bread Machine Cookbook offers plenty of sourdough recipes, including the following:

Sourdough French Bread

1 C starter
1 1/2 t sugar
3/4 t salt
3 C bread flour
1 1/2 t yeast
1/2 to 2/3 C milk

1. Place ingredients into bread machine in the order suggested by the machine's manufacturer.
2. Select the Basic option on the machine, then start the cycle.

Yield: One 1 1/2-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
Not provided, because Donna Rathmell German's books are also always-reliable for not including such information.

The Husband's Futzings
I didn't see any need to change this recipe. I included only half a cup of milk, as the starter seemed to be providing plenty of liquid on its own.

I won't lie to you--I chose this recipe because it was simple, an easy way to get rid of part of the sugar-based starter. Fortunately, I was pleased with the results. The sourdough French bread was a nice, crusty loaf, admittedly fairly nondescript in taste, but enjoyable enough with raspberry jam. And it served its primary purpose of giving me an excuse to use a good portion of my starter.

Note that I prepared a one-and-a-half-pound loaf, whereas normally I'll only make a one-pound loaf. That was a decision made solely because it allowed me to use up more of the starter.

Did I mention these starters take up a lot of room in the fridge?

As you can probably imagine, I was more excited about the recipe on the following page of the book:

Sourdough Pizza Crust

1 C starter
3 T olive oil
1 t salt
4 C all-purpose flour
2 t yeast

1. Place ingredients into bread machine in the order suggested by the machine's manufacturer.
2. Select the Dough option on the machine, then start the cycle.
3. Add water as needed.
4. When cycle is complete, roll out dough, then cover and let rise about 30 minutes.
5. Place in a preheated 500-degree oven and bake until crust is brown, about 5 to 10 minutes.

Yield: One large pizza crust

Nutritional Info
Not provided, and you should know why by now.

The Husband's Futzings
I added some of King Arthur Flour's Pizza Dough Flavor--a must-have for pizza-making, IMHO.

I've actually made this crust twice, once using the molasses-based starter, and once using the sugar-based starter. To tell the truth, I couldn't tell the difference between the two in the results. Both resulted in a dough that was almost clay-like, much easier to roll into shape than any of the other pizza dough recipes I've tried.

The unusual consistency of the dough, predictably, resulted in crusts with an unusal consistency, at least in comparison to my previous attempts at pizza-making. The sourdough crusts seemed denser, chewier. Their consistency was almost like that of a Bisquick biscuit, of all things. They boy didn't seem to enjoy them much, but Angela and I liked them well enough. Flavor-wise, they were pretty tasty (I'm glad I added the Pizza Dough Flavor), and they certainly weren't the worst I've ever made. And they were quick to prepare, which is the whole point of using a bread machine to make pizza dough.

A delicious chicken and meatball pizza...

...and a delicious sausage and pepperoni pizza!

Having used up a good portion of our starters to make the sourdough French bread and the two sourdough pizza crusts, but still not knowing which of the two was the better starter, I decided to combine them into one. (If nothing else, that allowed me to go from having two containers to only one taking up room in the refrigerator.) I haven't used the combined starter yet in any recipes, but I'll be sure to let you know when I do.

Wild Thing, You Make My Heart Sing

Here's the husband with the second part of his sourdough story.

--The Faudie

So we'd made ourselves some starters--now all we needed to do was leave them out long enough to catch some wild yeast and become suitable for making sourdough.

King Arthur Flour's sourdough primer notes that "keeping a sourdough starter is somewhat like having a pet because it needs to be fed and cared for." Well, I have three cats (plus several freeloaders), and I can tell you with absolute certainty that the reason felines are higher up on the evolutionary chain than yeast is that when a cat needs something, it will tell you so. Our yeast, on the other hand, was not so communicative. By day two, any activity in the starters had ceased.

Science factoid! The brownish liquid that had appeared by that point on the starter to the right (the one that was made with molasses) is called hooch--it's the alcoholic byproduct of the fermentation process. You're supposed to stir the hooch back in or drain it off, depending on whether the starter is looking to dry or too wet. I'm not sure why the starter on the left (the one made with sugar) never developed any hooch. Maybe it was the molasses in the one starter that did the trick, or maybe it was because that starter had more surface area exposed, or maybe it just managed to catch more wild yeast than the other one. Heck if I know.

Anyway, back to the conundrum of the inactive starters. Most websites I checked regarding sourdough starters call for you to "feed" the starter one cup of flour and one cup of water each day, but King Arthur's site only instructs you to feed the starter after you've removed some of it to make a loaf of bread. Concerned about my inactive starters, I decided to go ahead and feed them--and sure enough, they both bubbled and grew again...only to go inactive once more the following day.

Understand that this was about mid-week, and I wasn't looking to bake any bread until the weekend. Realizing that I didn't want to keep feeding two starters each a cup of flour a day, I decided to refrigerate the starters instead. I would have preferred to leave them out to continue catching wild yeast, but we can't afford to go through that much flour. Remember, I have cats to feed!

Friday morning I removed the hoochier starter from the fridge to let the yeast get warm and active again, then I gave it a good feeding before going to bed. That's a picture of the starter post-feeding at the left. See how bubbly it is? From everything I've read, that's the look of a happy, healthy starter. Which meant that the next day it was (finally) time to make some sourdough. I'd planned on using a King Arthur recipe since I'd followed their instructions to make the starter, but since they didn't seem to have any recipes that use a bread machine, I had to look elsewhere.

Sourdough Bread

3/4 C starter
1 T margarine or butter
1 1/2 T sugar
1 t salt
2 C bread flour
1 t yeast
2 T to 1/3 C milk

1. Place ingredients into bread machine in the order suggested by the machine's manufacturer.
2. Select the Basic option on the machine, then start the cycle.
3. Adjust the consistency with the milk while the dough is kneading.

Yield: One 1-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
This recipe came from one of Donna Rathmell German's books, so no, it was not provided.

I have to admit, it was a little odd to be baking with something that had been sitting out in the kitchen, bubbling away for the better part of the week. But hey, if it's good enough for the early pioneers, it's good enough for me! (Does anyone know what model of bread machine the early pioneers used?)

Want to know how it turned out?

It turned out freaking fantastically!

Isn't that a great-looking loaf of bread? I think that may be the single most attractive loaf we've produced. I've got many more pictures in addition to the ones I've posted here, just because that loaf was so darn photogenic.

It gets even better though: the bread actually tastes like sourdough, and a decent sourdough at that! Which is good, as we now have two starters taking up space in the refrigerator, and there's nothing to do with them but bake more bread. Good thing our cookbooks have plenty of variations on sourdough to try.

Where the Wild Things Are

The husband is trying something new. Here he is with the first part of his story.

--The Faudie

For all of the bread-making we've done since we bought our first bread machines last summer, there's one type of bread I've shied away from: sourdough. It's not because I don't like sourdough--because I most certainly do--but rather because every chapter on sourdough in any bread cookbook has an opening such as this one from The Bread Machine Cookbook:

As the early day pioneers traveled west across the United States, they carried a mixture of flour and milk or water which was used to leaven bread.

And it gets worse from there. Here's what King Arthur Flour has to say about that mixture--known as a "starter"--on their sourdough primer page:

To the early prospectors, a starter was such a valued possession (almost more than the gold they were seeking), that they slept with it to keep it from freezing on frigid winter nights.

Excuse me? I bought a bread machine because I want my bread-making to be easy. I don't want to hear about the labors and sleeping habits of early pioneers!

But recently, my curiosity got the better of me, and I set out to explore the strange and amazing world of sourdough. And that journey began with a better understanding of the mysterious starter. For those who don't know, to make a loaf of sourdough bread, you'll need to use a portion of a starter. No other bread we've prepared needs a starter, but sourdough does. Most of our bread cookbooks include a recipe for making one (all slightly different from one another), but King Arthur had me hooked when they said this:

The easiest and most successful method of making your own starter is to combine water, flour, and a tablespoon (or packet) of active dry "domestic" yeast which is available at any grocery store. By letting this brew sit for several days...the domestic yeast will go "wild" and develop the familiar tang of its truly wild cousins. You'll probably catch some wild yeast in the process as well.

Oh, yeah. The opportunity to create anything that can "go wild" is not one to be passed up. This was an experiment I needed to try.

Here's the full recipe for the starter, from King Arthur's site:

Sourdough Starter

2 C warm water
1 T sugar or honey (optional)
1 T active dry yeast
2 C King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

1. Pour the water into a two-quart glass or ceramic jar or bowl.
2. Add and dissolve the sugar or honey and the yeast in that order.
3. Stir in the flour gradually.
4. Cover the jar or bowl with a clean dishcloth and place it somewhere warm. By using a dishcloth instead of plastic wrap, you'll allow any wild yeast in the area to infiltrate and begin to work with the domestic yeast which itself is beginning to develop "wild" characteristics and flavors.

Yield: One starter

Nutritional Info
Not provided, because who would want to eat this? Yeeeech.

The boy readily volunteered to be my lab partner for this particular experiment. Once he understood the basic functioning of yeast--or at least, once he got hold of the idea that the yeast eat the sugars in the mixture, then "fart" out gases in return--there was no way he was going to be deterred from making a starter too.

Thus we ended up preparing two starters, different only in one regard: for one, we used sugar (evaporated cane juice, specifically, which Angela had picked up for us earlier that day), and for the other, we used molasses (an ingredient suggested by other sources).

King Arthur warned us it wouldn't take long for the mixture to start bubbling and brewing, and they were right. When we checked on the starters a few hours after we'd prepared them, there were plenty of bubbles rising to the surface. (The kiddo, in particular, was delighted with this by-product of the "farting" yeast.)

In fact, the starters were so active that the one in the smaller container quickly began outgrowing its habitat.

Time for a larger bowl!

We switched this starter to a larger bowl...which it outgrew by bedtime.

Time for an even larger bowl!

That was yesterday. When we checked the starters today, expecting them to be huge by that point, we were surprised to find that they'd actually shrunk somewhat overnight. Even worse, they didn't seem as active as they'd been before. I was worried at first, but King Arthur's sourdough primer assures me that everything is proceeding normally (I think). Apparently, a starter begins to separate after a day or so and needs to be stirred to blend it back together and to help distribute the yeast evenly. See how much I'm learning about sourdough? This is the best science lesson ever!

Now we're just waiting--we're supposed to let the starters rest at room temperature for two to five days, catching wild yeast until the bubbling ceases and a yeasty, sour aroma has developed. And then (finally!) it will be time to use a portion of the starters to bake some loaves of sourdough. Check back in a few days to see if we can tame these wild, farting yeast!

Lifting Risotto's Veil of Mystery

Last summer while reading Bill Buford's Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany, I learned quite a bit about a dish I'd never eaten and didn't have that much interest in: risotto. While hanging out in Mario Batali's kitchens for various purposes, Buford himself learned quite a bit about risotto and passed along that education, in part, to his readers. The message I came away with is this: Risotto is fussy, temperamental, needy, time-consuming, high-maintenance and will turn on you if you don't devote yourself to it while preparing it.

Or maybe that was his education about polenta. Or maybe it was both. Sorry, Gentle Reader. Last summer was a long time ago.

Anywho, I like my rice pretty simple: Join the right amount of water to the desired quantity of rice, bring it to a boil, cover, reduce heat and leave it be. I'm also somewhat suspicious of shorter-grain rice varieties since I find they get gluteny and sticky and clumpy and mushy at the drop of a hat. I like my grains long and fluffy, thank you very much. The rice variety used most frequently in 'merica for risotto, arborio, looks a lot like the grains sold as Japanese sushi rice--short and somewhat squat. Not for me, thanks. I'll pass.

But then a few weekends ago, the boys and I were at the big HEB scavenging through several bins of deeply discounted clearance items. The big HEB, unlike our regular HEB, has a few long aisles of imported stuff from around the world--good-quality imported stuff at that. We found some really nifty pastas, but they were still a bit pricey, along with some roasted tomato and basil spread that's worked quite nicely on a pizza and some roasted red bell peppers, which I know I'll put to good use eventually.

We also found a few boxes of risotto allegedly imported from Italy. The price was nice--$1.50--and the boy's eyes lit up when I held up the box. He's a huge rice fan, plus he likes his pasta. For a buck-fifty, I can give my boy a cheap (literally!) thrill.

I yanked the box out of the pantry on Monday, for I didn't want to have leftovers for supper (which we often do because we need to make space in the refrigerator, plus they're easier to serve as a staggered meal if the husband gets delayed at the plasma donation center after work) but didn't want to make pasta (another easy meal to serve staggered). The recipes printed on the package seemed easy, and I had the ingredients--but they just didn't seem all that exciting. So I do what I often do when I have ingredients I want to use but not an exciting source of inspiration: I seek out Madhur Jaffrey.

Off the shelf came my copy of World Vegetarian. Sure enough, Ms. Jaffrey included a handful of risotto recipes with very clear instructions for their preparation. Add the broth one ladleful at a time? Well, I've got nothing better to do on a Monday afternoon. Stir constantly? Again, I've got nothing better to do.

Risotto With Spinach, Golden Raisins and Pine Nuts4 C light vegetable stock
3 T olive oil
2 T pine nuts
Half of a smallish onion (about 1 oz.), peeled and finely chopped
1 T golden raisins
10 oz. fresh spinach, trimmed, washed, patted dry and cut into fine ribbons
1 C unwashed risotto
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/2 C grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1 T unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1. Heat the stock and keep it hot over very, very low heat.
   
2. Put the oil in a large, heavy, preferably nonstick frying or saute pan, and set it over medium-high heat.
   
3. Toast the pine nuts in the olive oil until golden brown, then remove them with a slotted spooon.
   
4. Add the onion to the pan, stirring and frying it for a min.
   
5. Add the raisins, stir a few times and then add the spinach, stirring and frying 3 to 4 min.
   
6. Add the rice and cinnamon, and stir and fry for another minute.
   
7. Pour in a generous ladleful of stock, reduce heat to medium and keep stirring the risotto.
   
8. When the stock has been absorbed, add another ladleful.
   
9. Repeat step 8 until all the stock has been used and the rice has cooked for at least 22 min. By this time, it should be just done.
   
10. Cook the rice another minute or so to absorb the last of the liquid.
    
11. Add the cheese and butter and stir until they have melted and disappeared in the rice.
    
12. Turn off the heat, let the risotto rest a min. or two, stir and serve, sprinkling the pine nuts over the top.

Yield: 3 to 4 servings of unknown size

Nutritional Info
I can't tell you what's in the finished dish, but I can give you the lowdown from some two standout ingredients:
Delallo Superfino Arborio Rice (quarter-cup per serving)
Calories: 170
Carbs: 41 g
Protein: 3 g

Il Villaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (1 oz. per serving)
Calories: 110
Fat: 8 g
Sat fat: 6 g
Protein: 9 g
Cholesterol: 25 mg
Na: 180 mg

It's not the most healthful dish in the world, but it's not the worst either.

The Faudie's Futzings
As you probably know, Gentle Reader, I tend not to futz with a recipe for a dish I've never eaten before or for an ingredient I've never worked with before because of my inexperience. However, with this risotto recipe, I felt confident enough in my previous (and prodigious) culinary misadventures with other forms of rice that I could futz a little:

• I used the Central Markup low-sodium chicken broth I had on hand. Sure, I stopped at the big HEB Monday after my workout to buy the special cheese and the pine nuts (I wasn't sure if I had any left from the bunch I'd bought for the highly intoxicating tequila bars I made ages ago) and could have easily bought some Central Markup veggie broth, but I didn't. I figured I'd save two bucks--at least on that trip to an HEB.
  
• I used a teaspoon, maybe a teaspoon and a half of olive oil. Three tablespoons just seems like overkill to me, and my gut can't take that much oil.
  
• My spinach was frozen and already chopped from a bag I'd bought in hopes of one day making some creamy chicken and spinach for the boys. I'm not sure if this one really qualifies as a futzing because in her notes for the recipe, Ms. Jaffrey writes, "If you wish to use frozen spinach, defrost and drain it first." See, Gentle Reader, Ms. Jaffrey recognizes that not all of us have ready access to, can afford or like to work with fresh spinach. And as much as I suck at draining previously frozen spinach, I gave it my best shot--and wound up with unsightly clumps, not graceful fine ribbons. Oh well.
  
• I didn't serve the risotto immediately after it had finished cooking.

That last futzing might qualify more as a massive mistake, but it was one I couldn't avoid. I'd put off making the risotto as long as I could while still allowing myself enough time (as I'd estimated I'd need) to finish it just as the husband was returning from the plasma center. Of course, The Faudie plans and the FSM laughs: The husband was about half an hour delayed.

By the time I served the risotto, I'd committed a cardinal sin: I'd let it become clumpy. So for all my careful stirring and fussing with the heat as I'd added ladleful after ladleful of broth, I got clumpy, mushy risotto.
To be fair, with all that melted cheese in it, the risotto tasted really good. The mouth feel, though, left something to be desired. That didn't prevent me from eating a good deal of it, nor did it turn off either the husband or the boy. They both seemed to enjoy it tremendously.

Lest you think I only served risotto that night, I paired it with a leftover ginger and rosemary–brined pork loin (the neighbors don't have a thyme plant I can "borrow" from, but that huge rosemary is awfully convenient) I'd made Saturday. The hint of sweet from the cinnamon and the golden raisins paired with the savory bite of the ginger from the pork were, in my unworldly opinion, a great pairing.

Returning to the making of my first risotto, I have to say that I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. It's really not that difficult to make, and from what I've read in other sources, you don't have to stir the risotto incessantly as some people would have you believe. Furthermore, it's not like your standing over a blazing hot stove for hours on end stirring some thick concoction with the kitchen equivalent of a canoe oar. It's just a wooden spoon, for the FSM's sake! And the burner isn't even all that hot.

Of course, I made a batch of risotto for three to four people. I'm sure the batches Bill Buford made while working for Mario Batali were meant to serve dozens of people and so maybe someone did have to use the kitchen equivalent of a canoe oar to stir the pot, which was in a kitchen already sweltering from the preparation of many other foodstuffs. But seriously, Gentle Reader, what's the likelihood of you or me ever being in such circumstances? Exactly.

If you find you're growing bored with your usual rice and want to play, pick up some arborio superfino the next time you're out and about and have fun. This ingredient has lots of tasty--and not so tasty--possibilities.

Sweets Fit for a Deity

Y'know what's great about Ganesh, Gentle Reader? A lot of things.

First off, good 'ol Ganesh has an elephant's head. There's a great story behind that, the type that sends a person to therapy for years:

"Well, you see, my dad, Shiva, the god of death and destruction, came home from war not knowing that Mom had decided to have a kid--me--to stand guard while she took her baths. Anyway, Dad came home one day while Mom was in the bath, and I dutifully turned him away, not knowing he's my dad and because Mom was, after all, in the tub. Dad, he freaked out at being turned away from his own home by some stranger, so what'd he do? He lopped off my head.

"Of course, as soon as he learned whose head he'd lopped off, he rushed out to make amends, vowing to take the life of the first living thing he encountered to replace my head. Bully for him and for me, that first living thing was an elephant. So while I guess it's great for family harmony that Dad tried to make it up to Mom for, y'know, lopping off my head, I'm stuck here with this elephant head. Not that I'm complaining or anything...."

Because of Ganesh's duty as his mother's bath guard, Ganesh is the patron god of entrances. But that's not his only realm of deity duty, which leads me to the second thing I find really cool about Ganesh: He's the patron god of writers and artists. Furthermore, he's linked with one of the great epics of all time, the Mahabharata (700 verses of which are the Bhagavad Gita). You see, Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata, wanted to dictate the verses of his epic to someone capable of writing extremely fast and without mistakes. Lord Brahma decided Ganesh was the only person equal to this great task, and our elephant-headed bath guard used his own broken tusk to record Vyasa's tale.

There's a challenge between the author and his dictation taker, but that's another story.

Take that, Saint Francis de Sales! What epics did you record, huh? You just fell off a horse a few times. Sheesh, some patron saint you are.

Finally, what I also dig about Ganesh is that he's a candy freak. Ganesh loves him some sweets. Of course, sweets in India, called mithai, are a little different from those we devour mindlessly here in the U.S. I urge you, Gentle Reader, to score yourself some burfi or gulab jamun or laddu, sometimes spelled ladoo. Better yet, make some ladoo yourself, for it's Ganesh's favorite.

Besan Ladoo1 1/2 C besan (chickpea flour)
4 T sooji (coarse semolina for giving texture, not flour)*
1/2 C ghee (clarified butter)
3/4 C sugar
1 t cardamom powder
4-5 T almonds, coarsely chopped
4-5 T pistachios, chopped
1 T raisins
*Optionally, replace the sooji with besan to make this recipe gluten free.

1. Dry roast the besan over medium-low heat until it's aromatic.
   
2. In a second pan, warm the ghee over low heat without overheating. If it is solidified, then it will melt.
   
3. Add the ghee to the besan, mix well and then allow to cool from hot to warm. Don't let it cool completely.
   
4. While the besan-ghee mixture is cooling, add the raisins to the pan formerly containing the ghee to allow the raisins to plump slightly, then set aside.
   
5. Add the chopped almonds to the ghee pan, toast them 1-2 min. and then set them aside.
   
6. Add the sugar, cardamom, raisins, pistachios (if using) and almonds to the besan-ghee mixture, mixing well. Optionally, reserve half of the almonds for garnishing the ladoos after they're formed.
   
7. To form the ladoo, pinch off a small amount of the "dough," roll it between your palms to form a ball and then set aside to cool completely. If you reserved half of the almonds, press pieces of them into the ladoo you just formed or roll the ladoo in the almond bits, first rolling it in a small amount of melted ghee, if necessary, to help the almonds stick.

Yield: 10-20 ladoos, depending on the size you make

Nutritional Info
I got this great, easy recipe from a fellow food blog, ChefInYou.com, with some additions (namely, the pistachios) from a similar recipe on Indian Food Recipes From Bharathi's Kitchen. Unfortunately, neither blog had nutritional information for the recipes, but if you only eat one or two small ladoos, you'll be fine. Don't be Ganesh and gorge yourself!

The Faudie's Futzings
As I mentioned in the previous section, I added pistachios after finding them in the recipe on Bharathi's blog. Otherwise, I didn't really futz with this one too much because it was such unchartered territory for me.

Since this recipe was my first chance to work with besan, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when toasting it. I was expecting something warm and nutty, but I either had old besan (I'll admit that I bought two years ago and had never opened it) or burned it when trying to roast it because the aroma wasn't terribly appealing. Maybe the smell was just so counter to what I'd expected that my mind decided it smelled bad.

DK, the authoress of ChefInYou.com, provides great tips throughout her recipe, including this very important one: "The chickpea flour should be warm and not cool. We require the mixture it to be warm since this warmness will help the sugar to melt a bit thereby binding the flour--enough to bind it into ladoos." Additionally, she includes a troubleshooting guide with the recipe for those of us who have problems forming the ladoo.

Such as me. For even though I'd read this tip before preparing my ladoos, I think I might have let the "dough" cool too much because I had a hell of a time getting the suckers to adhere and not crumble apart in my hands. My "dough" was a bit on the chalky side, but I found enough brute force got the things to clump.

Oh, if you're curious, Gentle Reader, I didn't garnish my ladoos. I wasn't going that far with 'em since I was making them for my Saturday yoga class attendees and had other things to do that day. Maybe next time.

Despite the funky aroma my toasting besan had, the ladoos turned out to be damn tasty. With the help of the almonds and pistachios--and maybe the toasting 'o the flour--the balls had the nutty flavor I'd expected with just a touch of sweetness to satisfy. The boys both found them tasty, as did a number of my regular class attendees. In fact, one of my regulars even asked me for the recipe, which I couldn't remember in specifics at the time. Bad me.

If you're curious to try some mithai but don't want to wait until Pancha Ganapati 2010 to whip up some treats for dear Ganesh, give these babies a shot. You don't have to heat up your kitchen, and if you've had a stressful day, squeezing the ladoo into shape can be a great way to release some of that tension.

Om gam ganapati namah, y'all!

Winter Picnic

At our most recent dining experience at Alborz, I ate for the first time (at least to my knowledge) chicken salad. Yeah, can you believe that, Gentle Reader? For someone who grew up eating a lot of what most folks would call tuna salad--canned tuna mixed with Miracle Whip and sweet relish--chicken salad shouldn't be a foreign thing, but it was for me. And I lost my chicken salad innocence not to any run of the mill chicken salad. No, my first chicken salad was the exotic olivieh, described on its card on the buffet as a Persian chicken salad with potatoes, pickles, eggs, olives and sweet peas. I'm not a fan of olives, but this salad was damned tasty.

Was I inspired to find a recipe for it and make it myself? No. But I was amenable to trying a recipe for a turkey salad I found in the December issue of Austin Fit, the same source as the fairly successful kam kash dish I made in October. That the boy saw the recipe and thought it was something he'd like to try, I felt all the more compelled to give it a shot.

I had just one problem: I had no diced turkey and had no plans to acquire any turkey, despite the boy's ongoing hints and musings about his desire to eat a traditional holiday turkey meal. So what's a faudie to do?

Lie to her son. Big time.

Cranberry-pear Turkey Salad2 C turkey breast, diced
1/3 C dried cranberries
1/2 C bosc pears, diced
1/3 to 1/2 C cilantro, roughly chopped
4 T Dukes light mayonnaise
3 T lemon juice (1 medium lemon)
1/4 t black pepper
1/2 t lemon zest
1/2 t sea salt (fleur de sel)

1. In a small bowl, soak the cranberries in hot water for 10 min. and then drain.
   
2. In a large bowl, combine the diced turkey breast, drained cranberries and pears.
   
3. In a separate bowl, combine the cilantro, mayonnaise, lemon juice, pepper, lemon zest and salt and mix thoroughly.
   
4. Add the mayo concoction to the chicken mixture. [Yes, Gentle Reader, the recipe in the print and online edition of the magazine use chicken, not turkey. The writer and I were apparently on the same wavelength. -The Faudie]
   
5. Chill until serving time.

Yield: 2 1/2 C
Serving size: 2/3 C

Nutritional Info
Calories: 266
Fat: 8 g
Sat fat: 2 g
Protein: 33 g
Carbs: 15 g
Fiber: 2 g
Cholesterol: 81 mg
Sodium: 489 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
Well, Gentle Reader, have you guessed the big lie I told the boy?

Don't judge me too harshly, please. Turkey and chicken are both poultry, right? It's not like I was trying to pass off tofu as turkey. And a large chicken breast I already have in my freezer is easier to dice and brown than doing the same to a turkey breast I don't have. And if the boy took no notice of the switch, so much the better!

Here are some other futzings:

• I used the boy's Miracle Whip Light instead of the light mayo called for in the recipe.
  
• My dried cranberries were sweetened, but I'm not sure if I was intended to use unsweetened. I believe you can get such things--or else the one barrel of dried cranberries at Whole Paycheck was mislabeled and not properly identified as sweetened.
  
• I don't think I used quite a third cup of chopped cilantro because even to me that seemed like a helluvalotta cilantro. I can't even imagine using a half a cup of the stuff, especially with such a small amount of mayo.
  
• I'm not sure that the half of the large lemon I squeezed into the mayo concoction yielded three tablespoons, but it was probably somewhat close.
  
• I'd zested the aforementioned large lemon before halving it to juice, so I'm pretty sure I had well more than half a teaspoon of zest in the mayo combo.

And yes, I used the full amount of fleur de sel in the mayo combo. I've had that little baggie of higher-end fleur de sel in my spice cabinet for more than a year; I'd never even opened it once since its purchase at the bulk foods playland at Central Markup. I was thrilled to finally have an opportunity to use it. Did it make a flavor difference? Hell if I know!

So enamored was I with the zesty lemon flavor of the Miracle Whip-cilantro concoction that I decided to add to it by browning the diced chicken breast in a wee bit of Monini lemon-flavored olive oil. Did that result in lemon overkill? Not to my taste buds. All that lemon tartness was the right counterpoint to the sweetness that lingered in the cranberries and was hinted at in the pears.

When the husband and I sampled the finished dish, it was still fairly warm. That warmth combined with its creaminess got me thinking about that oddball creamy couscous and vegetable dish I made a while back. While I had no desire to ruin a perfectly fine batch of couscous with thick, creamy sauce again, I thought the hint of creaminess the chicken salad had would go nicely atop a bed of couscous or even quinoa--and perhaps a bed of jasmine rice for the couscous-hating boy.

Aha! Thursday night's supper was solved!

I've Got One Hand in My Pocket[bread]
But I woke up Thursday morning reconsidering that grain accompaniment. Hey, we're talking about chicken salad here. Shouldn't it be paired with a baked grain product? Don't I have four functional bread machines? Shouldn't I be able to whip up some kind of bread product that would complement the zesty-sweet flavors of the chicken salad?

With visions of Middle Eastern flavors on my mind, I whipped out my collection of bread machine cookbooks and tracked down a recipe for pitas.

Pita Bread1 1/3 C water
3 T olive oil
2 C bread flour
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 1/2 T sugar
1 t salt
2 t yeast

1. Add the ingredients to the bread machine in the order recommended by its manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Dough cycle, then start the machine.
   
3. At the end of the cycle, divide the dough ball into 10 smaller balls.
   
4. Preheat a conventional oven to 500 degrees.
   
5. Flatten each ball into a disc, rolling each one into a circle of about 6".
   
6. Place the discs on a baking sheet and allow to rise for about 20 min.
   
7. Bake the discs for 8 to 10 min.

Yield: 10 pitas

Nutritional Info
This recipe is yet another in the long line of recipes we've used from Donna Rathmell German's The Bread Machine Cookbook. You should very well know by now, Gentle Reader, that she did not include nutritional info for each recipe. Bummer.

The Faudie's Futzings
I didn't change up the recipe, but I did inadvertently...alter the baking instructions. Let me attempt to explain, Gentle Reader.

I knew Thursday was going to be a screwy day, but I wanted somehow to present warm pitas come suppertime. That goal was impeded by my desire to kickbox with the husband, which takes about an hour and makes it kind of difficult to pop in and out of the kitchen to do things. If I got the pitas rising as we started kickboxing, I figured could still get the pitas baked and supper on the table and then get the boy to bed on time. Would it matter that I prepared the dough midmorning and then stuck it in the refrigerator until it was time to divide and rise? Well, we'd just have to hope for the best.

My quest to achieve the best result given the circumstances collided with one big wall: I had it in my head that the way to get the discs to rise was to put them in an oven that had been preheated to a certain temperature and then shut off, as Greg had done the two times he'd made pizza crusts from The New Best Recipe.

Heh.... Needless to say, the husband thought I was referring to the pizza crust's baking temperature, so he told me to heat the oven to 400 degrees. I even put the pizza stone in the oven, as I'd learned from an older episode of The Splendid Table featuring Shirley Corriher, author of BakeWise, The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking, that baking on baking stones was just the way to go. So when I put the pitas in the oven--half of them on a piece of parchment paper directly on the stone, the other half stayed on a second piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet--to rise for 20 minutes, they were in a very warm oven. Where they baked prematurely...

...and looked nothing like pitas.

While the pitas were pretty pathetic to behold, they were wonderfully tasty--although they tasted nothing like pitas I've ever eaten. Our pitas tasted more like yeasty, whole wheat dinner rolls or even the Fabulous Flats whole wheat naan we buy at HEB.

Oh well. I wouldn't be The Faudie if I didn't fuck something up in my kitchen every now and then, and the FSM knows I was overdue for a fuck-up.

By the way, I did make some couscous for me to enjoy. I added some lemon zest, freshly squeezed lemon juice, a bit of lemon-flavored olive oil and a handful of dried, sweetened cranberries to it to give it some panache. The spur-of-the-moment couscous salad wasn't as good as the fabulous orange couscous salad I often make from Kim Sunée's Trail of Crumbs, but it wasn't awful either. The chicken salad atop it worked out nicely.

The Faudie, Conqueror of Eggplant

You read that right, Gentle Reader. I have conquered the eggplant.

Maybe it's just me, but there's a sort of...mystery around the eggplant. They're gorgeous to look at if you're a fan of the typical eggplant's deep purple shade, but what exactly is underneath that skin? And can it kill you if not prepared properly? After all, it's a member of the "deadly" nightshade family, so that makes a person wary of the thing.

Needless to say, the first eggplant I ever bought several weeks ago sat in the 'fridge and sat and sat and sat some more in the 'fridge while I worried about how to prepare it properly and how to recreate in my own kitchen the glory that is Alborz' vegetarian eggplant stew. After confirming that dish's name, khoresh bademjan, from the restaurant's menu, I went in search of a recipe online, for my copy of the splendid Ziryab: Authentic Arab Cuisine does not include this dish in its selection of eggplant recipes.

Here's the thing I quickly realized as I was perusing khoresh bademjan recipes online: In its authentic rendering, the stew includes meat, either lamb or beef. But the stew I enjoyed so much at Alborz was vegetarian, so I had to change my search to just "vegetarian eggplant stew" or vegetarian Persian eggplant stew" (I can't remember which I used, but I wouldn't be surprised if I used both). That change yield three really tempting dishes. How was I to decide which to use?

The choice came down to two factors: (1) Ease of preparation of the eggplant and (2) Range of required ingredients, particularly saffron. For you see, Gentle Reader, I prepared this dish on a Sunday and hadn't left myself as much time as I would have liked when I indulge in a culinary experiment. Plus I was out of saffron after the saffron chicken and rice with dates dish from late October pretty much wiped out my stash of the stuff.

Patlicanli Cive (Eggplant Stew With Rice)
1 lb. eggplant, peeled partially leaving lengthwise stripes and diced
2 medium onions, cut in thin half moons
10-12 garlic cloves, chopped finely
3 green chilies, chopped
3 tomatoes (preferably green tomatoes for a sour taste), peeled and petite diced
3 T rice
1/4 C olive oil
1 t black pepper
Salt
2-3 T chopped fresh basil or mint OR 1 T dry mint or basil

1. Heat the oil in a pot.
   
2. Add the onion and garlic, and stir for 3-4 min.
   
3. Add the chopped chilies, and stir for a couple of minutes.
   
4. Add the tomato, eggplant, black pepper and salt, then stir once and do not stir again. Otherwise, the eggplant will get mushy.
   
5. Cover and cook on medium-low heat until the vegetables get juicy in the pot.
   
6. Stir in the rice, nice and polite.
   
7. Cover and cook on low for 30-40 min.
   
8. Before serving, sprinkle with chopped basil or mint.

Nutritional Info
I first found this recipe on iFood.tv and realized it's originally from a Web site on which I'd found another of my three prime candidates, Almost Turkish Recipes. Unfortunately, neither of these sources provided nutritional information for this dish.

The Faudie's Futzings
I told you already, Gentle Reader, that I was a bit pressed for time, but I tried not to let that impact my preparation too much:

• I'm not sure if the eggplant I used weighed a pound or more. It didn't feel like it, but I didn't want to use the more recently procured eggplant along with the old one, for I was saving it for another recipe.
  
• I used canned diced tomatoes.
  
• I used canned diced green chiles.
  
• My garlic was minced and in a jar.
  
• I didn't use the full quarter-cup of olive oil called for. I probably used about 2 tablespoons, which is a lot for me.
  
• I only used one onion, but it was a fairly large one.
  
• I completely forgot to add salt when I put in a few twists of freshly ground pepper from my pepper mill.
  
• While I have dried basil and even got it out to use, I didn't in the end because that's not included in the Alborz dish I was attempting to recreate, flavorwise.
  
• The recipe doesn't specify a particular type of rice to use, so I opted for basmati.

What the recipe doesn't mention but I suppose is implicit in the preparation of any eggplant is that it should be salted and allowed to sweat for about 30 minutes beforehand to help reduce the bitterness and, if memory serves, keep it from becoming utter mush. Before embarking on the peeling 'o the eggplant, I consulted a few of my vegetarian cookbooks and Cook's Illustrated tomes for guidance and wisdom, and I seem to recall reading that letting an eggplant sweat--

and trust me, it will sweat

--allows for better frying, which is one of the "best" ways to prepare it.

Unfortunately, none of the books I browsed said anything about how to peel an eggplant. Thank the FSM for the Internet! It may be full of porn and nonsensical blather (such as this blog), but it also has some useful information.

After toweling off my sweaty eggplant, I set about dicing it. The innards were nothing at all like what I expected, which was either something akin to the hollow inside of a bell pepper or a juicy but somewhat hollow of a tomato. No, despite the hollow feel of the an eggplant, it's fairly solid but yielding, like a zucchini. Interesting!

The stew came together in a snap. I wasn't sure what to do about the step telling me to cook the ingredients until the veggies became juicy since I was using canned veggies, including their juices. I think I let the stuff cook maybe five to seven minutes before I added in the rice. And while I usually try not to disturb a pot with rice but maybe once while it's cooking so as not to screw up the rice, I checked and stirred the stew several times throughout the 30 minutes of final cooking. I broke my little rule because I was concerned the stew didn't have enough liquid for the rice to cook correctly. Oh, all that stirring did not turn my diced eggplant to mush. It stayed nice and firm. See:
Yes, the finished stew is quite gorgeous. As for the taste--it was spot on. I was so thrilled with the flavor, for I had no idea if the recipe would even yield a flavor close to the stew at Alborz.

You might be surprised to know, Gentle Reader, that the stew has a certain sweetness to it. Odd, since there are no ingredients that would bring a sweet flavor, non? I wonder if the sweetness is a byproduct of the stewing of the eggplant, or perhaps the onions caramelized while the rice cooked. I dunno. I all I do know is that I was unsuccessful in saving any of this dish for leftovers: When I went to stow away what was left in Chive the Dutchie after we'd all eaten (the boys had crouton crumbs-breaded tilapia baked in the oven, a variation on a recipe from AllRecipes.com I received via email that day), I couldn't stop myself from taking another bite...and then another bite...and then a few more bites until all the stew was gone.

Sunday Night Fish Alternative for the Boys
or
What to Do With Old Croutons

Yes, I know, Gentle Reader, I'm a terrible glutton. But the stew was just so damn tasty and warm and comforting on a hectic, rainy, chilly Sunday evening. So if you happen to have an eggplant lying around and need a nice warm-me-up meal, whip up this recipe. You too can conqueror the eggplant in a most tasty way.

Battle of the Bread Machines, Day 6

How long has it been since the husband did one of these posts?

--The Faudie
It's been too long since the last throwndown in the Battle of the Bread Machines, our epic competition of Goodwill-bought bread machines. So let's get right back into the action, then!

Competitor #6: The Welbilt Bread Machine Model ABM-6000

Moreso than any of the other bread machines we've found at Goodwill, the Welbilt model ABM-6000 has the dents and scrapes to prove it's been around the block a time or two. It also came missing its kneading paddle, so once again Angela had to track down a replacement on eBay. (These silly paddles end up costing us more than the machines themselves!)

When we started the Battle of the Bread Machines--way back in July, for those who care--we got decent results from two other Welbilt models, the ABM-3600 and the ABM-100-3. I'm not sure if the ABM-6000 is older than these machines or not, but it certainly looks that way, given the amount of wear it displays. But who cares about appearances when there's bread to be made? As we began, we were certainly hopeful that the ABM-6000 would perform as well as its brothers.

The test recipe came from Better Homes and Gardens' Bread Machine Bounty.

Spiced Maple and Cranberry Bread

3/4 C milk
3 T maple-flavored syrup
1 T margarine or butter
1 1/3 C whole wheat flour
2/3 C bread flour
1/2 t salt
1/4 t apple pie spice
1 t yeast
1/2 C snipped dried cranberries

1. Add ingredients to machine according to manufacturer's directions.
   
2. Use Light setting, if available.
   

Yield: 1 lb. loaf

Nutritional Info
Calories: 90
Protein: 3 g
Carbohydrate: 18 g
Fat: 1 g (Saturated: 0 g)
Cholesterol: 1 mg
Sodium: 88 mg
Potassium: 71 mg

I followed this recipe pretty closely, though I did add vital gluten. (See how much we've learned about bread-making over the course of this competition?) The only other significant futzing was the creation of our own apple pie spice, which Angela prepared.

Once started, the ABM-6000 sounded like...well, it sounded something like this:

GRRRNN RRRNN RRRRRNN GRRRNN RRRNN RRRRRNN GRRRNN RRRNN RRRRRNN GRRRNN RRRNN RRRRRNN GRRRNN RRRNN RRRRRNN GRRRNN RRRNN RRRRRNN GRRRNN RRRNN RRRRRNN GRRRNN RRRNN RRRRRNN GRRRNN RRRNN RRRRRNN GRRRNN RRRNN RRRRRNN!!!

Angela and I suspect that the pan doesn't lock firmly in place, though we can't tell whether this is due to poor design or simply too much use in the past. In any event, this is easily the noisiest bread machine to participate in our little contest.

Official Results for Competitor #6
Despite the noise and despite its scuffed appearance, I'm happy to report that the ABM-6000 produced a decent loaf of bread.

Our spiced maple and cranberry bread wasn't perfect--the maple flavor was nonexistent, and I only believe you can taste the apple pie spice because Angela assures me she can--but that's the recipe's failing, not the bread machine's. And even then, it's hard to be unhappy with the way the loaf turned out. It might not be a good spiced maple and cranberry bread, but it's a great wheat and cranberry bread.

Was all the noise worth this?

If the ABM-6000 were only a little quieter, it would probably be one of the top bread machines we've tested. But the fact that it is ridiculously loud (did I mention the GRRRNN RRRNN RRRRRNN sound?) means we still don't have a champion appliance yet. At some point I'm going to have to call an end to the Battle of the Bread Machines and name one of our appliances the winner, but in the meantime, we'll be continuing to check out the second-hand machines at Goodwill.